Shoot first, Ask Questions Never
by SpartAl412
Summary: To those who are remain true to the Imperium's Creed, blind faith and ignorance are an ideal. Sometimes though, such attitudes can lead to some rather unfortunate consequences which could have easily been avoided.


Roaring with zealous fury as his storm bolter spat out a hail of death, Terminator Sergeant Kastus of the Silver Skulls lead the charge of his fellow Terminators against the heretical followers of the Dark Gods. Feeling the recoil of his gun as he fired it in full auto, Kastus shouted a prayer to the Emperor as his brothers fought alongside him.

For weeks now, the company of Silver Skulls had been fighting alongside both the forces of the Ordo Malleus and the Cadian Shock Troops against this blasphemous incursion. Ahead of him, mad cultists charged in waves as their more dangerous masters, the red armored Word Bearers fought with discipline and skill.

On most engagements, Kastus would have used the bayonet on his storm bolter and his power claw to cut down the cultists so he could conserve his ammunition. Unfortunately during this campaign, the cultists had strapped several explosive devices upon themselves which proved to be deadly enough blast through or severely damage power armor. As such, the Terminator Sergeant had ordered his men to engage the cultists from range.

Continuing to blast his way through the waves of cultists, Kastus soon heard his vox unit crackle to unit

'Come in Kastus, can you hear me?' came the deep voice of Force Commander Leontius

'I hear you sir, what are our orders?' replied Kastus

'Our skull probes have picked up one of the Traitor leaders, a Chaos Sorcerer' The Commander said. 'Find the Sorcerer and kill him!'

A wave of unease and loathing filled Kastus for like many Imperials, he was wary of psykers and those who had given themselves over to Chaos were just the worst of them.

The Force Commander then continued 'I am sending you the coordinates of the Sorcerer, he is not far from your position.' As soon as the Commander finished his sentence, the HUD of Kastus's armor began to light up as information was being fed to its machine spirit. Ordering his squad to activate their teleporters and get ready, he heard their unified acknowledgements. They had a psyker witch to kill and it was a good thing that Brother Maro had brought a heavy flamer.

* * *

><p><em>Well what do we have here<em>? came the thoughts of the Chaos Sorcerer whose name was Morganor as he used his Witchsight to scry into the Warp itself. In the Immaterium, he saw something which looked like an elderly man dressed in an archaic set of black robes made from raven feathers. As Morganor looked into the eyes of this robed stranger, he saw a vision of several Imperial Terminators appearing near his position; he saw them unleashing a lethal hail of bolters and fire upon the Sorcerer. Lightly shaking his head and switching back to his mortal sight, Morganor knew that would just not do.

Whispering words of power as he drew upon the power of the Warp, Morganor had a few tricks up his sleeve. He promised himself that he ought to thanks his patron, for granting him this last minute vision. Odd though that his master would appear in such a manner, it mattered little though for the Sorcerer was grateful for the assistance.

As he finished his spell, Morganor charged the very Immaterium around him with a disruption field. Any sort of attempts to use the Warp itself to get close to the Sorcerer would have some rather unexpected but certainly unpleasant effects on the ones who made the jump. Whatever was the case, Morganor was confident that he would be safe for now.

* * *

><p>'Now!' roared Kastus and as one he and his squad were cast into the Immaterium itself. Seeing the nightmarish kaleidoscope of light and images, Kastus was hardly bothered for he had been in hundreds of teleportations over the centuries. As several seconds passed, unease began to creep into the Terminator Sergeant for it was now taking a bit longer than usual.<p>

In a sudden flash, Kastus found himself in a strange place with several books stacked upon shelves, a library? Thought the Terminator with confusion as he looked about to see his squad were all there intact. As he surveyed the library, he quickly saw a Changer of Ways sitting cross legged with its wings furled, upon its lap was a scroll it looked to be reading.

'Daemon!' roared Kastus who immediately raised his storm bolter but before he could even point his gun at the daemon, several daemonic chain links burst from the ground and wrapped around his entire body.

'AGAIN WITH THIS!?' shrieked the Changer of Ways in a deep voice with its tone showing clear outrage 'YOU ARE THE NINTH SET OF MORTALS TO BE SENT THROUGH MY DOMAIN! BEGONE WITH YOU!

With a flick of its wrists, the Daemon opened a portal which spat out several more chain links, each one wrapping around the immobilized Terminators. Roaring his defiance as he tried to move, Kastus could not help but be dragged into a glowing disc of azure light.

* * *

><p>'<em>Victory is ours warriors<em>!' mentally roared Executor Lacea as she saw the Zerg Hive explode in a shower of blood and meat.

'_En Taro Tassadar_!' cheered the unified voices of her troops. Although victory was theirs, there was still the matter of wiping out the stragglers and ensuring that the infestation upon this planet remained cleansed, that would be of little problem though for Lacea had led the full might of the Golden Armada against the Swarm.

'_Do not__ celebrate just yet_…' another voice said quietly into her mind. Feeling the warm presence of the sentient presence within her amulet Lacea thought back in response

'_What do you mean_?' asked the Executor with curiosity.

'_Direct your forces west of here, in a few seconds your sensors should pick up an energy surge_' said the sentient entity with a calm confidence.

Not long ago, Lacea had been assigned with the task of setting up a mining base on the moon of some lifeless world which once had some sort of advanced alien civilization. There was something about the nameless planet which unnerved Lacea but when one of her probes had found a strange stone shard which glowed rather brightly, she thought it would make for nothing more than a pretty trinket until it began to mentally speak to her.

The entity within the stone did not divulge its identity and had simply communicated with her and asked many questions. It then began offering the Executor a number of surprisingly sound, tactical advice which proved useful in winning several battles against the Swarm. Following the entity's words, Lacea ordered several of her Immortals, Sentries, Colossi, Carriers and Tempests west.

Soon enough, Lacea detected an energy surge west of her army. Through one of her observers which managed to reach the area first, the Executor saw several large armored things which looked somewhat similar to the Marauder units of the Terrans.

'_Destroy them all_' the entity said '_they will be hostile towards your forces_'

'_Are you sure_?' Asked the Executor for while she had no true fondness for the Terrans, some amongst their number such as James Raynor had proven to be honorable allies towards her people '_They look like Terrans and-_'

'_The enemy closes_!' suddenly came the report from one of her Immortals as the Terran-like being opened fire with ballistic weapons.

'Obliterate_ them all!_' Lacea quickly commanded.

* * *

><p>As a sudden flash of light filled his vision, Kastus shook his head for he felt both dizzy and more than a bit confused. That was clearly one of the roughest jumps he had made. Looking around him to see what looked to be a jungle, Kastus eyes soon locked upon several golden walkers like machines with four legs which were accompanied by small things which sort of looked like Tau Drones. Some looked to be as tall as Eldar Wraithlords and armed with what seemed to be cannons on the sides of their arms, while others were just absolutely massive like a War Hound Titan as they strode upon long thin legs.<p>

His instincts told him that these machines were of a clearly alien design. Looking up to the sky, he saw several massive alien ships hovering in low orbit, by the Emperor he thought with surprise. What xenos were these?

'What are your orders sir?' ask Brother Maro.

'Purge the Xenos! For the Emperor!' commanded Kastus for there could be no other fate for the alien. Raising his storm bolter towards one of the walkers, the Terminator sergeant opened fire along with the rest of his squad.

Their shots impacted against flashing spheres of light and Kastus instinctively knew that these xenos had some sort of shields. In response, the xenos walkers opened fire with a heavy volley of plasma shots and bright orange lances which struck the Terminators with deadly accuracy. Several orbs of lightning were fired from xenos ships which resembles some of those used by the Necrons and from the larger ones, several smaller fighters ships emerged in swarms.

Feeling the impact as several plasma bolts struck his armor along with the burning lances, Kastus quickly saw on his HUD that his armor had been breached in multiple places. The last thing Terminator Sergeant Kastus saw was the second volley of massed energy weapons fire from these unknown xenos.

* * *

><p>Seeing as the last of the strange, Terran-looking units were completely obliterated by the combined fire of her army, Lacea could not help but be curious about this strange encounter.<p>

'_What were those things_?' she asked the entity within the glowing stone.

'_Warriors from another plane of reality, they are nothing more than blind, murderous fanatics who would gladly see your species meet oblivion given the chance_' said the entity within the stone rather coldly.

'_You sound like you have much experience with them_' replied the Executor with curiosity

'_Indeed, yes_' the entity said '_a long tale that would be but for now, victory is yours Executor, congratulations_'

'_And I have your wisdom to be thankful for, friend_' Lacea said.

'_Eldrad_' the entity within the stone said '_you may call me, Eldrad_…'


End file.
